The Diffy Phenomenon
by RogueDragon and Nebulan
Summary: Author: RogueDragon... The Diffys have returned to their own time, but an agent in the Temporal Research and Preservation Department suspects that things might not be all well now that they're back where they belong. Please R&R!
1. They're Back!

I may have details about the show wrong, and for that I apologize, I tried to be generic just in case. Characters and story belong to Disney Channel except for the characters in the future I created.

Feedback is loved. I had fun with this story and I hope to share it. I mean, my thought for this was that there was a practical and much dweebier way to get Phil back to the past that would make more sense. So thus brought about this fic.

---

The director of the Temporal Research and Preservation Department was completely swamped that 3rd of May 2123 as a shy, little known face poked into the room. Most of the others at the department weren't she if she was an intern or something to be taken more seriously, but there had been a time she was taken seriously. In the last year or so, however, she had been forgotten.

"Mr. Magbojos?" she squeaked just barely loud enough to be heard.

The director looked up, and as she had feared, he appeared to be rather stressed. She knew this was not going to help him at all.

"Excuse me, sir, I'm Agent Yne Davis." After recognition failed to cross his features she added, "I'm in the Department for Temporal Misuse." Trepidation managed to cross his features this time. Yne braced herself, "I specialize in the… Diffy Department."

Mr. Magbojos ran a tired hand over his face, "please have a seat Agent Davis," he instructed as he prepared himself for the worst. "Give it to me straight."

"Well, according to my research, they should be returning to our time sometime this month," Yne stated.

"Well it's about time!" the director started to stand up but halted as the agent continued.

"Sir, I must remind you before you do anything drastic," Yne inserted, "Lloyd Diffy is an Engineer, not a physicist, he probably has no idea that two years have past here and that the 'Thanks to the Diffys Law' was passed in the meantime."

Magbojos sighed. The family that single-handedly had made his life a stressed nightmare were finally coming back, so on the bright side that was a lot fewer problems he would have to deal with if the Diffys would work with them. "Any idea where or when they would show up?"

"Well, most likely, sir, they will return their rental time-RV to where they had got it from, I've already notified them to contact us when they do."

----

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Lloyd announced, "welcome home!" The time machine reemerged into normal space-time.

Curtis grunted his approval, not having liked the actual trip through subspace at all.

"Are you sure?" Pim demanded, "now that we're here are we sure there isn't ANOTHER reason to turn this bucket of bolts around and go through all that again?"

"No, we're here to stay!" Lloyd responded cheerily.

Out the window was a vista that was so readily familiar, but at the same time, felt so out of place. The setting sun brought out the lights, high-rises, skyscrapers, floating establishments, flying vehicles, skyaks and every other commonplace thing in the Future… no wait, the present.

The reality of the situation finally started to sink in with Phil. He was finally back where he belonged, but he dreaded it. He knew he would, but they belonged here.

In a few minutes the family pulled into the Rental Shop's lot and parked. They started getting ready to unload two years worth of supplies when a loud knock at their RV startled them all.

"Diffys!" bellowed a voice outside of the vehicle, "this is the police!"

"Quick!" Lloyd panicked, "hide the bellybutton lint!" His family responded with unhelpful looks.

"You are not under arrest, but I will need you to accompany us immediately. All of your belongings will be taken care of, but please do not delay."

The Diffys prepared to cooperate as Lloyd pocketed some of the bellybutton lint and Pim pocketed some century-old currency (whose monetary value had increased tremendously).

Outside the RV waited a police force and the Press who immediately started pouring out questions. "What was it like?" "Was it difficult living among primitives?" "Where did you get the caveman from?" "Was this all a result of intentional sabotage against you and your family?" "Are you going to resist the Thanks-to-the-Diffys Law?" "Are you going to fight the new time-travel restrictions?"

They all stood dumbfounded until the police attempted to usher the family away from the Press and into the transporters.


	2. Lost Time

The Diffy family settled into the director's office as an intern finished handing them some beverages and left the room.

Director Magbojos began to inform them of their situation, "First of all, Diffys, you need to be aware that the year is 2123."

"How can that be?!" Lloyd demanded, shooting up from his chair.

"It's temporal physics, Mr. Diffy," Magbojos attempted to make calming gestures with his hands, "You spent two years in a single time period with a damaged time engine. You'd have to be an expert in the department to arrive in the present at the correct time under those circumstances."

Lloyd was about to retort, but had to admit to himself that he was far from an expert in temporal physics.

"After you had not returned within five days, the owner of your rented time-travel-vehicle notified us here at the Temporal Research and Preservation Department." Magbojos continued as he eased Lloyd back into his chair. "Agent Davis was instructed to study your situation and she found you living in the early twenty-first century." Magbojos picked up his auto-refilling mug and took a sip. "You have no idea what kind of problems you created for me."

"You've got problems!" Pim let off like a canon, "I've lost two years of my life! I only have so many years of youth, you know! Everyone else I grew up with has lived on a couple of years that I am going to COMPLETELY miss out on… unless you let us." Pim ended that rant in a pleading and suddenly sweet tone.

"Now-now Mr. Director," Lloyd stood up again, reaching a hand out as if to slow Magbojos down, "we did everything required of us to the best of our abilities, in fact I think you'd be quite proud of how we handled the situation!" The Diffy father defended as his family looked as if they would help in the defense.

Magbojos attempted to calm them before they got carried away. "How you handled yourself in the past is not in question," the temporal director explained, "it's what we've had to do as a result."

The Diffys relaxed some and listened with interest, except for Curtis who was attempting to figure out how he could get into Magbojos' globe-like fish tank in the wall of his office.

"Concern about damage to the timeline has always been our primary focus here at the TRPD," Magbojos explained, "no one had spent so much time in such an influential time period before other than researchers who were living as the locals. All the technology at your disposal and your lack of training and certification has stirred up a lot of controversy in the meantime here. Certification requirements have been completely rewritten, time-travel restrictions have been greatly increased such as required maintenance on time engines and so on," Magbojos sighed, "And the public is furious."

"Well, Director Magbojos," Barbra spoke up, "I think we of all people can appreciate how damaging time-travel can be when in the wrong hands."

Lloyd seemed to feel differently, "But what your saying is the average citizen is no longer allowed to time-travel?" he demanded, "I don't think I can appreciate that!"

His wife placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him, "That's because you never had your very existence threatened, dear."

"Huh?"

"Remember Great-grandpa Kyle?"

"Oh ye-ah…" Lloyd looked up at the director, "yeah, we'd understand."

"I'm glad to hear that," Magbojos replied.

Magbojos was finally able to relax now that the Diffys were willing to work with him. Just then the young Agent Davis came barging in the door, overwhelmed with a variety of data tablets. "Ah, Lloyd, Barbra, Phil, Pim… Curtis… this is Agent Yne Davis who was assigned to your case," Magbojos introduced.

After Yne had been able to catch one of the tablets that had been teetering in her arms, she finally was able to look up at the family who she had studied so closely. "What—Why are you here?"

The others in the office looked back toward where she was looking and realized that Curtis was still behind Phil's chair at the fish tank.

"Oh, Curtis! We sort of adopted him." Barbra smiled, walking over to the caveman and turning him toward Yne.

Yne looked uncomfortable as if she had admitted to something she shouldn't have, which is why her boss's boss was looking at her oddly. Phil was looking at her oddly because he could have sworn she had been looking at him when she said that.

---

A/N: Name the random TNG reference! Whooo! I'm a nerd.


	3. Friends

It's an odd sensation. It had only been two years since Phil had left 2121 and ended up in 2003, but in that time of two years, his old life had felt forgotten in many ways. Since they had been drastically cut off from the life he had grown up with, the old life seemed to become like a dream. And now that he was back, the newer life was the one that didn't seem to exist. Yet two years had in fact passed here and he really did live those years in a different time period.

'Surreal' was the only word that seemed to fit the situation. The only thing that seemed to help was just forgetting the last two years had even happened. That, of course, would have been a lot easier to accomplish if everyone wasn't asking him about it all the time.

The days following their return included a lot of time spent with the Temporal Department trying to straighten everything out, but Phil and Pim were only needed for a little while. So on their third day back, Phil got a chance to hang out with a group of some good friends he had from a couple of years ago.

"So finally I got to the stage of Greenemia where I wasn't lying anymore but I was fully green and had a white beard. So I left the house to go to the banquette where Keely and Bruno were so I'm able to explain to Keely why I said all those things and Bruno mistakes me for dressing up as a troll mascot and challenges me to a mascot battle."

"So, wait," Cenji interrupted Phil's story-telling, "why didn't you want Keely to go with the football guy?"

"Come on, Cenj!" Kendall elbowed her oblivious friend, "Keely going with Bruno represent a romantic interest and Phil wants to be the one with the romantic relationship with Keely!" It took a couple more seconds for Cenji to realize what Kendall meant.

Phil chuckled softly, "you sound a lot like Keely."

"Aw! You miss her!" Kendall squealed, "That's so cute!"

Phil smiled slightly, "well, yeah, she was there when I needed a friend most. She was one in a millennium… I didn't even admit it to myself how much I really liked her until recently, I guess," Phil added, fidgeting with his thumbs, "I guess maybe I fell in love with her long before… but we were both too clueless to do anything about it."

"Don't you hate it when two people are meant to be together and they don't realize it!" Kendall sighed again, "Two loves, separated by time, forced apart! It's so romantic! A regular Romeo and Juliet!"

"Um, Ken," Phil responded, "It's not really all that much like Romeo and Juliet." Kendall giddily shrugged but Phil muttered on, "please don't tell me the kids of my _own_ time are possibly more ignorant about the classics than the 21st century kids!"

Phil's friends were taken back by this comment.

"Sheesh, Phil, Kendall just misspoke," Sara retorted, "don't have an ali'jma."

"Sorry," Phil sighed and ran a hand over his face, "I guess it's been a harder transition than I thought."

Kendall sighed again to which Sara smacked her on the back of the head in irritation. One of the other friends in the group then asked for another story, and in an effort to distract himself from just how much he missed Keely and the 21st century, He continued to tell stories about the 21st century, which often featured Keely. Obviously it wasn't a good plan for distracting himself.

Phil was over half-way though the Great-Grandpa Kyle story when a hover vehicle jerked to a halt nearby.

"Phil!" the driver frantically said, "get in, and hurry!" Phil recognized the driver as the Agent from the Temporal Research and Preservation Department who specialized in their case. Phil also noticed that Pim was already in the vehicle!


	4. Problems Arise

"What's going on?" Phil inquired as he settled into the seat as Agent Davis took off at slightly unsafe speeds.

"This" Yne Davis indicated to the monitors in her vehicle. "Monitors on to ENN," Yne Davis told the computer.

"—unexplained phenomena sightings have continued to ravage the globe," a reporter was saying. "Experts have been calling them temporal in nature or 'disruptions in the timeline'. Theories as to the cause tend to lie with either the recent primitive research program that New Atlantis University have been conducting in the late stone age, but even more theories have pointed to the return of the Diffy Family to our time after their two-year detour in the early 21st century. The Diffys are the only unprofessional group of time-travelers to ever spend more than three months in a different time."

The reporters continued their reports by summarizing how their family had ended up in that situation, as Yne instructed the monitor to mute.

"Gorram idiots!" Yne cursed, "'Take a vacation, Davis' they said. 'We need to assess your value to the department.' The stupid fools!"

Phil was confused. Pim just seemed freaked out by the pissed-off Agent. "Are you saying these 'time distortions' are caused by us?" Phil inquired.

"No," Yne responded, "I currently blame my boss and my boss's boss. The problems were cropping up even before we sent your friend Curtis back to his own time."

"Wouldn't those time cops already be working on the problems?" Pim asked.

"Exactly!" Yne spat.

------

Agent Davis stormed on past the Director's secretary and waiting room in which Phil's parents were waiting. Phil and Pim attempted to keep on Yne's heals so as they passed Lloyd and Barbra joined them as Davis barged into Magbojos's office.

"Why wasn't I notified?" Yne demanded, causing the director to nearly drop his data devices.

"About the distortions? Because, Agent Davis," Magbojos replied, offended by her presumptions, "you are not in that department."

"Fine," Yne snapped, "why wasn't I notified once you got significant data that pointed to a connection with the Diffy's?"

"Because we do not yet know what the problem is!"

"Well I do!" she yelled, and than added more respectfully, "sir."

Magbojos turned toward Yne and dismissed the others who were in his office before the interruption. "Do tell."

"I don't know how you got off assuming that after studying the Diffys for two years that I would have nothing useful to give you besides an approximation of their return!"

"We sent you on vacation to determine…"

"But you didn't know what additional information I had," the younger woman stated clearly.

Magbojos fixed her with a serious look. "You mind filling me in now?"

"My boss, Twigg, told me not to tell you because he didn't want to add to your stress," Yne explained, "we assumed they would return without giving us much choice in the matter."

"Agent Davis," Magbojos interrupted, "speak plainly."

Yne stood straight, "Phillip Diffy was not supposed to return with the rest of his family!"

"What?!"

"Everything pointed to the rest of the family leaving that time except for Phil, he still has a future in the past." Yne explained, "he's not really mentioned in history, but apparently made enough of a difference to cause our current problems."

"What do you mean?" Magbojos demanded, "We're supposed to send Phil Diffy back? It's the law, Davis! He has to stay in his own time."

"Sir," Yne continue, "The laws were setup to protect the timeline. If we intend to do so, we actually would practically have to order the boy to leave this time! He can't stay!"


	5. Reunion

Meanwhile, over a century in the past, Keely Teslow was heading home from school. She was doing alright. She hadn't seen her best friend in a little under a week, but after crying herself to sleep a few nights, she was determined not to let her life go down the drain. She is Keely Teslow: determined, dedicated, d… dainty? Eh, just out of 'd's.

She was headed home from school, attempting to dwell on homework instead of missing her friend who usually accompanied her at this point of the trip homeward. Keely watched the ground as she walked; not looking up until she noticed someone was standing in her path.

"Hey stranger," the charming face of the boy from the future grinned.

"Phil!" Keely gasped in shock, running up to him and throwing her arms around him in a suffocating hug.

"Hey Keel," Phil choked.

When the teenaged girl released him, Phil didn't even give her a chance to ask the question they both knew she was going to ask next. Instead, Phil cupped the sides of her face and planted his lips firmly on hers. Keely's knees weakened but Phil caught her and dipped her over, supporting her back and holding her closer to him, deepening the kiss.

If Pim had seen the scene, or had simply read the previous paragraph, she would have begun gagging to the point of vomiting. All Keely was thinking at that point was that this was the most romantic moment of her life.

"Wow," was all Keely could say after they stopped.

"Sorry," Phil smirked nervously, "I really missed you. You see, I actually haven't seen you in a couple of months."

"But you left last Thursday," Keely said, confused.

"Yeah, I stayed in the future a bit longer," he explained, "they wanted me to turn seventeen, which is the age you have to be in the future to be on your own."

"You mean like in Harry Potter?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind, continue."

"Um, yeah, they also had me doing a lot of work to get ready." Phil went on, "In fact, they sent me back before we—my family—had actually left… the last time…"

"Oh," Keely attempted to keep up, "so you're back?"

"Actually, Keel, I'm here to stay," Phil responded with a wide grin.

------

"So they made you come back?" Keely verified.

"Well, it's not like they twisted my arm," Phil said, "I mean, our family returned to the future because we thought it was the right thing to do, where we belonged. But apparently I belonged right here." Phil smiled, standing in front of Keely, holding both of her hands.

"But wait," Keely began, "what about your family, wont you miss them? What about vice-Principle Hackett? Wont his suspicions continue?"

Phil motioned for her to slow down, "All taken care of. First off, the people for the future had me set up several things. Like breaking in and changing government files so it would look like Dad works for the government and got transferred to a classified job."

Phil could see the reporter gleam in her eye at the thought of this, so he hurriedly moved on. "They also gave us communicators that link our two times, so I'll be able to communicate with my family, although the calls could be monitored to ensure we weren't misusing it. (Especially Pim's calls)." Phil continued, "They also can project their images with semi-substantial holograms with the virtu-goggles into the past every once in a while."

Phil also went on to explain how he was given a minor allowance until he got a job of his own. He got to keep a few of the future gadgets, including one Wzrd, and various gadgets he managed to convince the TRP Department that he needed to maintain his secret.

"So you're stuck here?" Keely inquired.

Phil grinned, "it's not like I see it as a bad thing."

"Oh," Keely blushed cutely.

"You're worth it, Keely," Phil stated seriously.


	6. Epilogueish

"So," Pim said carefully as she cautiously approached Agent Yne Davis, "what all do you know about Phil's future?"

"What do you mean?" Yne replied innocently.

"You know, what you didn't want him to know before he went back." Pim continued, unfazed, "the ol'boy is gone now, so do tell."

"Well, details are sketchy at best," Yne replied, giving in, "I mean, I'm not even sure what we're suppose to influence or not." Yne flipped through some files, "for example: it would really be best for Phil to be married before the next national census so he can get away with not having to account for the rest of you; having a family of his own. But if everything goes the same he will be married before 2010 anyway. However I don't know if that is supposed to be influenced by us or not."

"So who does he marry?" Pim asked casually. Agent Davis looked at Phil's sister cautiously. Pim went into defensive mode, "I promise I wont tell him! We know we can't give anything away to him, thus the reason why you monitor our phone conversations. So tell me, it's Blondie isn't it?"

"Um, if Blondie is her name, than no," Yne replied, slightly confused.

"Keely Teslow!" Pim responded impatiently, "or, what, does she change her name to Keely Diffy?"

"Actually…" Yne selected the related file in her database, "He changes his name to Phil Teslow."

"What?" Pim contorted her face in disgust.

"It's actually an extremely rare thing to do in that time period, but it probably will help him not be too noticed, given how famous his wife became."

"Famous?" Pim pried.

Yne feared she gave too much away, but realized that Pim could actually be trusted not to tell her brother because, after all, it did give her a certain amount of power over him. Besides, Yne hadn't gotten a chance to explain the things she had been able to research over the last couple of years.

"Actually, when we were having the temporal distortions," Yne started, "the first major clue that it was due to your brother coming back with you was the fact that various populations of once endangered animals were disappearing. Several marine animals, spotted owls, wild cattle, and so on; Keely Teslow would go on to help make major changes in… well apparently it'll eventually effect the whole world given the phenomena we had last week."

"But Keely couldn't do it without Phil?" Pim wasn't overly fond of Keely, but she didn't think her brother would be due all the credit.

"He becomes a great support for her, apparently," Yne continued, "in college he'll work various odd jobs and graduate with a general degree, but eventually he ends up dedicating himself to supporting his wife in her endeavors, being her in-field camera-man as well as taking care of their children whenever she is at work."

"Children?" a thought suddenly occurred to Pim, "wait! I'm not my own great-great-aunt am I??"

"Uh, no," Yne replied, "his descendents are nowhere in your ancestry."

"Oh good!" Pim sighed in relief, "so… what are the chances that you'd let my parents and I attend my dear brother's wedding in person?"

The agent eyed the sweet smiling youth suspiciously, "um, why don't we cross that trans-temporal corridor when we come to it…"

The end 


	7. Extra Thoughts

Epilogue's epilogue:

Phil will continue on to have many adventures, maybe less gadgets from the future, but keeping his secret and explaining his family (who will sometimes be home, despite no car driving them to and fro because of the projectors that allow them to visit.) Phil will also be able to keep in touch with the rest of his family's adventures in the other time period. They may even check in on Curtis and even bring him back to the present if he so desires.

So in other words, they could continue the TV show! Please??

---

(RogueDragon's author notes)

Characters I created:

Director Magbojos

Agent Yne Davis (I have a coworker named Lynn and the "L" on her name tag is covers so it looks like "ynn" and that's where the idea came from.)

In the future there's a good chance many names will be different, yet biblical names like Phillip and Sara will still be around, so that's why I named the second female friend Sara.

Kendall is a name I thought would be cool for a girl.

Cenji is intended to be a boy. His name originally was going to be Kenji which is a Japanese name, but Kenji, Kendall and Keely all in the same paragraph seemed painful.

I was going to name another friend Shane, but it didn't seem necessary to name him.

I guess Twigg was another character. He's Yne's boss who wanted to avoid telling Magbojos that their research pointed to Phil not returning with his family.

"ali'jma" is a word I made up on the spot.

And, yes, gorram is a curse word I stole from the SciFi/western TV show "Firefly". As far as I can tell it's not a real word.

Please read and let me know what you think! And feel free to correct me on anything.


End file.
